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The Low Orbit Helium Assisted Navigator (LOHAN) team is delighted to announce today that a heavyweight team of postgraduate students from the University of Southampton will be tackling the design of our Vulture 2 spaceplane.

Regular readers will recall that we recently popped down to have a look at the Southampton University Laser Sintered Aircraft (Sulsa), with a view to using the same 3D printing process on our own vehicle.

...and András Sóbester of the Computational Engineering and Design Research Group, School of Engineering Sciences...

...for their hospitality, and over lunch we discussed the idea of some of the department's students taking on the Vulture 2 challenge.

Professor Scanlan subsequently threw down the gauntlet to his students, which was picked up by Joshua Jeeson Daniel, Christopher Dodd, Jeroen van Schaik, David Cooper and Amrith Surendra (pictured below, L-R). I'm sure you'll join us in offering this aeronautical mean machine, which also includes Siddhartha Santos, who couldn't make the photocall, a hearty El Reg welcome.

So, you'll be asking yourselves, what happens next?

Well, we've provided the design team with the mission parameters and technical details of the Vulture 2 rocket motor and on-board camera and tracking kit, and we're leaving it up to them to take it from there.